Starmer pleads with resident doctors to halt strike

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged resident doctors not to follow their union down the "damaging road" of strike action, which is due to begin on Friday.

Writing in the Times, Sir Keir said this would cause "huge loss for the NHS and the country," as he criticised the British Medical Association (BMA) for "rushing" into strikes.

Resident doctors – the new term for junior doctors – are to start a five-day strike in England at 07:00 BST in a dispute over pay.

The BMA said the government had had every opportunity to stop the walkout.

The public is being advised to attend planned appointments over the strike period, as NHS England hospital bosses attempt to keep routine operations going and only reschedule appointments in exceptional circumstances.

Talks between the BMA and the government broke down on Tuesday with the union saying it was unhappy ministers were refusing to address their pay concerns.

Sir Keir said the walkouts threatened "to turn back the clock on progress we have made in rebuilding the NHS over the last year".

This year resident doctors are getting an average pay rise of 5.4%, following a 22% increase over the previous two years.

But the BMA said wages were still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008, even after an increase in August.

The BMA wants pay to be brought back in line with the level it was 17 years ago, when they say their pay started to be eroded.

The prime minister's comments come after Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he deeply regretted the "position we now find ourselves in" in a letter to resident doctors on Thursday.

He said the government could not afford to go further on pay, but he was "prepared to negotiate on areas related to your conditions at work and career progression".

Streeting said the pay deal was "the highest pay award of the entire public sector for resident doctors".

He said that during the talks he had been prepared to reduce the costs doctors in training face for exam fees equipment and food and drink as well as speeding up career progression.

The BMA asked for a scheme to help write off student loans, but the government rejected this.

BMA resident doctor co-leaders Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: "Resident doctors are not worth less than they were 17 years ago. Restoring pay remains the simplest and most effective route toward improving our working lives.

"Mr Streeting had every opportunity to prevent this strike going ahead, but he chose not to take it."

However, NHS England and Streeting said they would be looking to limit the impact of the strike.

Streeting said: "There is no getting around the fact that these strikes will hit the progress we are making on turning the NHS round but I am determined to keep disruption to patients to a minimum."

Senior doctors are being brought in to cover for resident doctors.

In previous strikes, the focus has been on staffing emergency care - but this time the NHS wants to keep non-urgent services going as much as possible.

NHS England has told hospitals to only cancel routine care, such as hip and knee operations, in exceptional circumstance.

Patients in need of emergency medical care should use 999 or present at A&E as normal, or use 111 online as first port of call for urgent but not life-threatening issues during the strike, NHS England advised.

Prof Meghana Pandit, of NHS England, said: "It's really important to reduce cancellations, because people have been waiting, sometimes for months for their routine hip replacement or hysterectomy or any appointment, and actually rescheduling the appointments impacts on them and leads to physical and psychological harm."

Previous walkouts have led to mass cancellations with more than a million appointments and treatments cancelled during the resident doctor strikes which began in March 2023.

Then, some hospitals were only able to deliver half their normal amount of routine care on strike days.

But NHS sources said, this time, some hospitals were planning full schedules.

But Prof Pandit said it was inevitable there would be some disruption.

The BMA has written to NHS England to warn it is risking safety by spreading staff too thinly.

Meanwhile, NHS managers have also criticised what they say are inflated shift rates being requested by senior doctors to provide cover for striking resident doctors.

Daniel Elkeles, of NHS Providers, which represents health managers, said the strike would be a "crushing blow" for patients.

He said another "huge worry" was the cost, saying the BMA had recommended senior doctors ask for "inflated rates" that were "simply unaffordable".

The BMA had recommended senior doctors insist on premium rates that for consultants can exceed £300 an hour for night shifts.

This can mean they can earn three times what they normally would.

The BMA said doctors needed to be incentivised to take on this extra work.